Tuesday, April 21st. That’s the date Google unleashed it’s much anticipated and feared mobile algorithm, dubbed "mobilegeddon”. Google introduced their new algorithm in order to give preference to mobile-friendly websites over all others. In other words, websites which did not render well on a mobile phones would likely not appear on a Google search result. That’s very bad for business.

The change was to affect millions of websites worldwide. Phonefinder was in trouble. Phonefinder is South Africa’s number one mobile marketplace where consumers are able to compare every cellular network offering from a single source (up to 5000 unique cell phone contracts). The service also offers cellular services such as repairs, insurance and games.

"The decision by Google makes perfect sense. It is unfair of a website to get priority in a search if the end user will likely have a poor experience” says Lance Krom of Phonefinder. The idea behind the new Google rollout is to give dominance to websites which are easy to navigate on a mobile phone, but only when searched for on a mobile phone (web searches on a desktop or tablet are not affected).

Phonefinder has spent many month’s perfecting their website so that the end user receives the best experience. Navigating the website was top priority for the team. "we are most proud of the fact that it takes an end user no more than 5 clicks in order to find what they are looking for. We compare over 5000 cell phone deals so 5 clicks is a great accomplishment.” Says Lance.

Like most data heavy comparison websites Phonefinder was difficult to simplify for the phone experience, however Google has made it necessary. Lance explains that it is important not to compromise on functionality since a user who has a poor experience on a cell phone will unlikely return to the website "we didn’t want the mobi site to replace the website, it needed to compliment the website. We wanted to see visitors on the mobi-site visit the website at a later stage, and that is exactly what we are seeing”. Users on the m.Phonefinedr site have performed eye to eye with the website traffic on every level (time on site, pages visited and bounce rates are almost mirror images of themselves), that is remarkable for a mobile version of a comparative website.

Although the term Mobilegeddon may be a bit over-dramatic because many webmasters have confirmed very little change to their rankings it has been beneficial for Phonefinder who have reported a 15% increase in mobile Google search result visibility. Google’s algorithm may still be rolling out, Mobilegeddon is just around the corner – be ready.

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